Early Life and Education
Gregory was born in 759 in Kartli, an aristocratic Georgian region, into a noble family connected to the ruling class: he was the nephew of the wife of Nerse of Iberia, Eristavi of Kartli. He received a comprehensive education in the ecclesiastical sciences, liturgical chant, Georgian literature, philosophy, and foreign languages.
Although his family expected him to enter the priesthood, Gregory chose the monastic life instead. He fled to Opiza Monastery together with his cousin Savva—later Bishop of Ishkhani—and two companions. After roughly two years at Opiza, he moved to the Khandzta region in Tao-Klarjeti to live with the hermit Evodius.
Monastic Foundations
Around 782, with the support of the feudal lord Gabriel Dapanchuli, Gregory and his companions established a church, refectory, and monastic cells at what became Khandzta Monastery. His monastic rule followed strict ascetic principles inspired by the Lavra of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified in Palestine. Under his direction Khandzta soon became the center of monastic life in Tao-Klarjeti.
Ashot I the Great granted Gregory land at Shatberdi, where he founded a major center of manuscript copying and illustration. His disciples extended the network further: Theodore founded Nedzvi, Christofor founded Kviriketsminda, and Hilarion of Jerusalem established Ubisi. Gregory also oversaw a women's monastery at Mere and restored the church of Ishkhani.
He held considerable ecclesiastical authority in the region, influencing the election of Arsenius I as Catholicos of Kartli (860–887). The Klarjeti communities he shaped articulated ideas of Georgian unity and church autocephaly during the crucial period of Bagratid consolidation.
Khandzta Monastery
The monastery Gregory founded in the Tao-Klarjeti region has been identified with ruins near the village of Pırnallı in Artvin province, present-day Turkey. Its construction developed in stages: an initial wooden church, dining hall, and living quarters were built in 782; a stone church replaced the wooden structure in 820 under the patron Gabriel Dapanchuli; and the surviving church was built between 918 and 941 from high-quality sandstone transported over long distances.
A bell-tower was added in the 16th century before Ottoman integration led to the site's eventual abandonment. The main church structure still stands, though its cupola collapsed in 2007.
Legacy and Hagiography
Gregory's life was recorded in 'The Vita of Grigol Khandzteli,' composed by the monk Giorgi Merchule in 951, about ninety years after Gregory's death. Its full title styles Gregory as the archimandrite and builder of Khandzta and Shatberdi and includes commemorations of other blessed fathers of the region. The work was later expanded by the Bagratid prince Bagrat II between 958 and 966.
Merchule, himself a monk at Khandzta, wrote prose praised as eloquent and imaginative and regarded as unsurpassed in Georgian hagiography, weaving together intimate detail, historical fact, and a characteristic interest in the surrounding world. Beyond its literary merit, the Vita gave voice to ideas of Georgian unity and ecclesiastical autocephaly, and Gregory is remembered as a central figure of Georgian monasticism and a patron of Georgia.
